Boys & Girls Club Blog

Last week, five of our Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh Keystone Club members traveled to Orlando, Florida for the 2019 National Boys & Girls Club Keystone Conference along with 1,500 other members from Boys & Girls Clubs around the world!

Keystone is a dynamic leadership and service group for teens 14-18 years old that allows teens to learn valuable leadership skills and participate in various service experiences. Keystone projects and activities are based on four components: Academic success, career exploration, teen recruitment and community service. As Keystone clubs complete these activities, they are recognized as either a silver, gold or legacy Keystone based on the amount of involvement they have achieved in and outside their club in the past year.

Our 2019 Keystone group had reached the legacy level this year which allowed them special privileges to participate in certain activities and events throughout the conference. Our members explored different higher education and job opportunities at a college and career fair, took part in various learning sessions about teen drug use, bullying on social media, ACT prep, self- image, how to be a leader and more. They even heard from ex NFL star now inspirational speaker Trent Shelton about following their dreams and learning who their real friends are.

New to conference this year, all teens and advisors participated in a community service day. Members broke up into different community service project sessions and made food bags for the homeless and dog toys for the humane society. It was a wonderful and fun experience to be able to give back to the Orlando community! Besides having a full schedule of learning each day, we still had plenty of time to have fun! Karaoke, caricatures, dances, arcade games and bingo were just a few of the fun nightly activities our group participated in!

Last but not least, we had a surprise trip to Disney World!!! It was a great way to end the conference and be proud of all of the work the teens accomplished over the past year. Though it was a very humid 95 degrees, we took in as much of the experience as we could before ending the night with fireworks and animation show on the Disney castle.

Overall, both Keystone members and myself left conference proud and motivated about what we have accomplished as a Keystone club and what we want to do in the future! As we are starting to think about next school year, our keystone members want to remind high schoolers that we are always looking for more keystone members! If you or a teen you know are interested in learning more about Keystone, stop down at the Teen Center or sit in on one of our meetings Monday afternoons this summer from 4:00-5:00pm! We would be happy to have you!

Keep a look out for more Keystone updates in the future!

Teen Center Program Director/ Keystone Advisor
Liz Karlovich